"Toy Dragon to AD&D Red Dragon@$1.67" Topic

Here is the toy Dragon conversion I forgot about. The original toy Dragon, from Wal-Mart, for $1.67 USD: original image from their site; the model primed in red; the model painted, washed, and matte clear coated, glued to his thin plywood base.

I will finish decorating his base today. The markings around his claws were made with pencil, so they will hide easily and completely when I paint the plywood base with PVA Glue and apply colored sand mixtures to it. The marks guided me in gluing the figure to the plywood base. I used E6000 Glue for the job as it adheres to soft plastic figures quite strongly (LDPE and HDPE plastics, and almost nothing adheres to these soft plastics!).

Of the three toy Dragons I am converting, this one was the easiest, and the fastest. It required no physical alterations. I just primed it read with a spray paint that adheres to plastics. I followed that up by using acrylic paint pens with brush tips. When that was completed, I brushed on Minwax Polyshades urethane stain, some flavor of Walnut (dark brown color). Finally, I applied a matte clear coat, twice. It appears glossy in the photos, but it has a nice matte appearance in person.

IMO, this sculpt was perfectly designed for an AD&D Red Dragon. No physical alterations were necessary. If you want an inexpensive Red Dragon, this is the toy to buy: $1.67 USD at Wal-Mart; <$15 in paint (less if you already have what you need from painting other miniatures); an inexpensive base (optional, but I plan to use these in my 2e BattleSystem games, and for those rules, it needs to be based).

Once I finish the base, I will post some new photos of it. Photos of the entire collection of the three toy Dragon models I am converting for use in my AD&D and 2e BattleSystem games, can be found here, in my Google photo album for this project. There are many images to view, so take your time and enjoy. Cheers!

Nicely done!

Well done!

Thank you for your kind comments.

Here are the final photos of the Red Dragon conversion: back view, on a 1"-grid, with a 28mm Human figure for sizing; 3/4-view, same 1"-grid, same 28mm Human figure; frontal view, 1"-grid, 28mm Human figure.

I go for simple, but effective; inexpensive, and fun to craft. Anyone can buy a professional gaming figure, and paint them up, and there is nothing wrong with that -- I've done it repeatedly. This, however, is a different challenge altogether: find a toy sculpt that works, that looks like the 1e/2e AD&D artwork, and modify it to fit the desired artwork. It has been said that this is a lot of work, and it can be. It is absolutely a fun past-time for me, and that is why I do it.

I also do it because it takes me back to the gaming figure world of 1980. Back then, I was a Freshman in High School, and I did not have money for miniatures at that time. I could drool over the Dragon Magazine advertisements, and I could dream. Today, I can make those dreams come alive. Hopefully others will enjoy the pursuit with me. Cheers!

Several months ago, there was a discussion here on TMP about how big a dragon would actually be. This guy looks about right to me, something extremely formidable, but something a human sized warrior could actually fight, and with lots of skill and some luck, could actually defeat. I see lovely dragons, giants, and other monsters at the gaming store, but far too often it just doesn't seem possible that a person could defeat it, unless, of course, he remembered to bring along his Sherman tank.

Grelber

Scale Creep infected the RPG's alongside of the miniatures industry: with every Edition of D&D, the Dragons grew larger and larger,,,

In the official 2e AD&D rules, Dragons became demi-gods: their size grew to 200+ feet in length, from snout to tail tip; their wing spans more than doubled, as well; their Hit Points, for an Ancient Great Wyrm, grew to 100-200. In the rule books, the authors alluded to the fact that Player Characters could only kill a very young Dragon, perhaps only 8-10 feet in length! I never followed D&D after the 2e rules were published, as those are the rules I love and enjoy to this day.

I have rarely seen any Dragon model which would approximate an Ancient Great Wyrm, in 25mm-28mm scale -- the models would likely be 12"-36" in length!

Having said that, I will field a Great Wyrm in my 2e BattleSystem games, but the models used are far smaller than they should be, for practical reasons. ;-) LOL! Cheers!

Dragon looks great!